Family seeks more Pa. prison time for wife killer

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole said Tuesday that it will consider new information in the case of a former Ivy League professor who is scheduled to be paroled after serving six years behind bars for beating his wife to death as she wrapped Christmas presents.

An agency spokesman, Leo Dunn, would not say what new information will be considered because it is not considered public information. But Dunn said it is still possible that Rafael Robb will be paroled as scheduled Monday.

The agency made the statement after chairman Michael Potteiger met with members of Ellen Robb’s family at the agency’s Harrisburg offices.

The victim’s brother, Gary Gregory, said he did not want to discuss the information he gave to the board, but said it is current information the family believes shows Rafael Robb is a danger to society.

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“We trust that they’re going to use this as an opportunity to do the right thing and to reverse this decision and keep this criminal incarcerated to the fullest of the sentence,” Gregory said.

Rafael Robb, now 62, was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for Ellen Robb’s December 2006 slaying. He killed his wife, then 49, as she wrapped presents in their kitchen in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. At the time, he was a tenured economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

At his sentencing, Robb said there was no justification for the killing and called it “a horrific misdeed” committed during the heat of an argument. Ellen Robb had been planning to end their 16-year marriage, and her husband feared he would see less of their daughter and possibly suffer financially if they divorced. The stress of his wife’s mental illness also had led Rafael Robb to snap, his defense lawyers said at the time.

Robb has spent six years in prison and became eligible for parole when he reached his minimum sentence. In its Nov. 7 decision to grant him parole, parole board members cited Rafael Robb’s positive institutional behavior, acceptance of responsibility for the offense and completion of “prescribed institutional programs.” It also cited a recommendation from the Department of Corrections.

The parole board said it was not aware of a lawyer or family member who has represented Rafael Robb.

The office of Rep. Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery, released a letter Tuesday to Potteiger from the original trial judge, Paul Tressler, objecting to the board’s decision to parole Robb. In the letter, Tressler wrote that Rafael Robb showed himself during the investigation to be a “highly manipulative individual,” and that such behavior continues today.

“Even more telling is his attempt to manipulate his grieving daughter into continuing her relationship with him by threatening to withhold financial support for her future,” Tressler wrote. “I fear his prison conduct and your judgment about him not being a threat to the public is another example of his manipulation, this time of the parole board.”

Tressler expressed similar concerns about Rafael Robb’s behavior when he sentenced him in 2008. Robb’s daughter is now 18.